What Does It Take to Build Websites for Small Businesses?

Months of sending ideas back and forth to a friend and never-ending discussions over bottomless cups of coffee with your collaborator for a new project has finally come to fruition now.
You’ve managed to sell your idea to your investors and are ready to take the next step: Getting a snazzy website proclaiming to the world about your business’s arrival.
You’ve also pretty much got another kink straightened out alright: A clear idea of what exactly should get on your business’s website.
But, you surely wouldn’t have the time to learn web design between rushing to check out the available options for an office space and interviewing prospective digital marketing managers!
Relax, most of your peers can’t do everything single-handedly either.
According to the WASP Barcode 2017 State of Small Business Report, the process of web design for marketing purposes ranks above all on the priority list and getting a good graphic design in place is very essential, for it makes for a great platform to showcase your offerings across all social media channel fronts.

Infographic Courtesy: AcadGild

But, you should also know that this work is outsourced most of the times.
Finding the right post-production enabler for your ideas can become a challenge. For example, will a designer understand my vision? How much will it cost me to get a design that will help my website stand out from the rest? How do I know if I’m being conned with respect to what I’m being charged for the web design?
These are some very valid questions, and, here’s how you can answer them.

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What do I need to get on my page?

Scope the work for your web designer before you decide to hire one. Have a clear idea of just about how many pages you want featured on your website. In case you’re just starting out, you should ideally not require more than 6 pages when operating on a shoestring budget.

Home

About us

Contact us

Our services/products

Reviews

A landing page/announcement page that links to your ads

You can also add blogs, additional product/services pages, a link for your newsletter, photo gallery, and much more, but this comes much later. First, as a rule of thumb, get friends/peers/employees or even customers to give you a feedback on your website’s design and usability.
Write this all down and communicate it clearly to the designer. And it is also quite okay to steal some elements off of good performing websites initially, because after all, the designs that you cop have been tried, tested, and liked.

Will a designer understand my vision?

Spend time going through some websites that you got hooked to instantly. Some typeface you absolutely loved or that new-age blog on The New York Times with high-definition GIFs and images interspersed in between the blog’s text? (Do check out The New York Times article, it’s so bloody slick!)
Figure out the elements you want featured on your website. Share the same with your designer: concrete, visual ideas always help convey one’s vision accurately. No matter how crazy, smart your web designer is, it’s important to present them with clear samples of what you want.
This saves a lot of time and money spent on building different iterations, or in worst-case scenarios, having to reassign the project to some other web designer altogether.

How do you find the right web designer?

It’s better to hire somebody who’s worked for some of your friends/peers before this. Shortlist at least 4 to 5 prospective designers. Do not promise to make the entire payment at one go. Typically, payment cycles in such cases are divided into thirds.

How much will it cost?

Speaking of Indian rates (since most of the readers that we get on this blog are from this region), a basic website with 4–7 pages can cost up to Rs. 6,000. Web design agencies also tend to give freebies like logos, banner options, meta tags analytics, free domains, and much more.
A good idea is to do a thorough survey of the current rates and speak to some freelancers as well.
Globally, rates typically start from as little as $15 per hour to about $100 per hour. $40 to $75 per hour is about average.
And just in case that doesn’t fit your budget, then you may as well try some website developer tools like Wix, Yodle, or Weebly.

Once you get the basics of design ideations right, building a website for your business wouldn’t seem that hard!
Keep visiting this space to know more in the world of web design!